Listen to Rashida Tlaib

Rep. Rashida Tlaib choked up during a congressional hearing on Tuesday while reading one of the torrent of death threats she said she has received for the crime of being one of the first Muslim women ever to serve in Congress.

Tlaib, who has been the consistent target of racist and Islamophobic attacks since taking office, was asking FBI officials about the “tools” they have to fight domestic extremism when she read from a letter she and fellow Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar had been sent. She had to pause to compose herself while reading the letter and was visibly emotional as she finished it.

The letter writer referred to Tlaib and Omar as “ragheads,” said they were pleased to hear about the Christchurch massacre, and added, “This is a great start. Let’s hope and pray that it continues here in the good old USA. The only good Muslim is a dead one.”

“We get so many of them,” she added, “and I keep asking, what happens? What happens to these individuals…I’m a mother. I want to go home to my two boys.”